Handspun Balaclava

"Have you seen this man?"

Yup, looks like something off one of those wanted/CCTV deals, doesn't it. Although the person in question is normally wearing a subdued colour, not turquoise :)

I'd picked up this yarn last year. I can't remember what we'd gone out for, but we were headed downtown when I spotted some neon signs highlighting a yarn store that I had no idea even existed. So Joe, being the good hubby that he is, insisted that I go check it out. For local Colorado folks, it was the Blazing Star Ranch, and it is located inside a Vacuum store, which probably accounts for why I hadn't noticed it before. 




I'm kicking myself because I can't seem to lay my hands on the label for this. All I recall is that it was an alpaca handspun yarn, and I'm thinking there was less than 200 yards of it's aran-weight goodness!. The yarn is fabulous - so very squishy.



I looked through ravelry for something to make (such a handy site for plugging in yarn weight and yardage to figure out what your options are). When I showed Joe the various options and asked what he thought, he suggested that maybe I could make him another balaclava out of it. Erm, yes, of course. I'd knit him a balaclava a while back and he gets good use of that when he's out walking the dogs in the colder Colorado weather.

I made the pattern up as I went along... which translates as knitting, ripping out and knitting some more :) The final version was knit using a US10 circular needle.  I knit from the crown down to the neck.  Starting by casting on 6 stitches and working in the round in a K2, P2 rib, with increases every row until there were 84 stitches on the needles.  Once it measured about 6 inches, I cast off 20 for the peek-a-boo section (I'm pretty sure that is the correct balaclava terminology!) and then worked back and forth in the rib pattern for 1.5 inches, before casting those 20 stitches back on and resuming knitting in the round until the balaclava measured a total of 16 inches.



Joe likes the strangest things!  He's worn the balaclava a few times already.  I'll give him this, it is super soft and extremely warm.  Attractive...?  Well, I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder :)))

Hope you are having a good weekend,
Sam x